to quell the riots, which raged with destructive force for four days, promised the rioters that he would endeavor to have the draft suspended. It included William Wallace, of Pennsylvania, whose connection with the coffee-stained and fraudulent naturalization papers, which gave the State to the Democrats in October, 1856, had earned him the name of "Coffee-pot Wallace." It contained Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, who had been tried for treasonable utterances, and sent within the rebel lines; and it included Joseph E. McDonald, of Indiana, who was likely to profit by the work of the secret and disloyal order of "Knights of the Golden Circle," even if he had no connection with this treasonable set.

Horatio Seymour, the permanent President of the Convention, put the whole responsibility of the war upon the North, ignoring the acts of aggression on the part of the South. "Four years ago,” he said, “a Convention met in this City when our country was peaceful, prosperous and united. Its delegates did not mean to destroy our Government, to overwhelm us with debt, nor to drench our land with blood; but they were animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and the condition of our land. They thought they might safely indulge their passions, and they concluded to do so. Their passions have wrought out their natural results. The Administration will not let the shedding of blood cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian charity, and the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method to save our country. Nay, more, they will not listen to a proposal of peace which does not offer that which this Government has no right to ask." He closed with the covert threat: "But for us, we are resolved that the party which has made the history of our country since its advent to power seem like some unnatural and terrible dream shall be overthrown. We have forborne much, because those who are now charged with the conduct of public affairs know but little about the principles of our Government."

The platform adopted declared the devotion of the party to the Union; arraigned the Administration for military interference with the recent elections in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, "for the subversion of civil by military rule, in states not in insurrection; for the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial and sentence of American citizens in states where the civil law is in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and the press; the denial

of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test oaths, and the interference with, and denial of, the right of the people to bear arms in their defense. It declared that all these were calculated "to prevent a restoration of the Union, and the perpetuation of a Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.” But the plank upon which the campaign most largely turned, was the following:

RESOLVED, That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired; Justice, Humanity, Liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to the ultimate Convention of the states, or other peacable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.

George B. McClellan, of New Jersey, was nominated for Presi · dent, and George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, for Vice-President. The nomination of General McClellan was unsatisfactory to a considerable minority in this Convention of peace-makers. He had arrested the Maryland Legislature, when it was on the point of passing an ordinance of secession. A Maryland delegate stood up in the Convention, proclaimed McClellan a tyrant, and added: "All the charges of usurpation and tyranny that can be brought against Lincoln and Butler, can be made and substantiated against McClellan. He is the assassin of states rights, the usurper of liberty, and if nominated will be beaten everywhere as he was at Antietam.”

In view of McClellan's military career there was something of grim satire in the declaration that the war was a failure, for although, at one time he was the idol of the Army of the Potomac, and his military failures had been condoned by the Democrats and many of the Republicans, the fact had, by this time, been quite generally recog nized that he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the early disasters to our armies in Virginia. With 200,000 of the best equipped, and best drilled volunteer soldiers ever put in the field, he had hesitated, through all the pleasant fall weather of 1861, to attack an army, never exceeding 60,000, at his front. He had done this in spite of great urgency on the part of the President to advance. His men were enthusiastic, and eager to fight, but his long delay had a depressing

effect upon the troops. He finally sent them into winter quarters in tents, on the plea that if they were allowed to build huts, it would disclose to the enemy that they did not expect to commence operations till spring. During the time that he was disregarding the President's appeals to advance, he was sending to Washington impertinent letters of advice in regard to political matters and the operations of the armies in other parts of the country.

Still there were many who charged upon the Administration at Washington the responsibility of McClellan's defeats before Rich

GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN.

mond. The drawn battle of Antietam was magnified into a great victory by his friends and admirers, but during the campaign the fact became generally known that after the battle the President visited McClellan in the camp on the Potomac, and vainly urged him to cross the river and give the enemy battle. Leaving his tent early in the morning with a friend, Lincoln went to an eminence that overlooked the vast en

campment. "Do you

know what that is?" he asked, pointing to the "It is the Army of the Poto

mac," was the answer. "That is a mistake," Lincoln said. "It is only McClellan's body guard." While McClellan lay there Stuart, with his cavalry, swept completely round the army, sacking towns and villages on his march, without losing a man.

While the President was chafing at McClellan's delay, McClellan himself occupied a portion of his time in writing letters criticising the Administration. In one of these he said: "The President's late proclamation, and the continuation of Stanton and Halleck in office,

render it almost impossible for me to retain my commission and selfrespect at the same time." But he neither resigned nor attacked the enemy, and the President removed him. He afterward took credit to himself for not heading a mutiny of his troops, because of his removal. "Many were in favor of my refusing to obey the order," he wrote, "and of marching upon Washington to take possession of the Government." He seems to have heard these counsels without rebuke, though he had not the courage to heed them. Although all these facts were brought out during the campaign they were not fully known at the time of his removal, which had caused a storm of indignation in the Peace Party. "This dismissal," Lord Lyons wrote to his Government, "caused an irritation not unmixed with consternation and despondency. The General had been regarded as the representative of conservative principles in the Army. Support of him has been made one of the articles of the conservative electoral platform."

"With reverses in the field, the cause is doubtful at the polls," said President Lincoln. "With victory in the field the election will take care of itself," and the tide began to turn at the very time the Peace Convention was in session. Before it adjourned news of the capture of Fort Morgan came. Shortly afterwards intelligence was received of Sherman's victory in the battle of Atlanta and his occupation of that City.

"Sherman and Farragut," Seward said in a speech at Auburn, "have knocked the planks out of the Chicago platform." A few days afterwards Sheridan commenced his brilliant dash through the Shenandoah Valley and thrilled the North with the victories at Winchester and Fisher's Hill.

With Farragut in control of Mobile Bay, with Sherman's plan of marching from Atlanta through Georgia already known; with Sheridan in full control of the "granary of Lee's army," and with Grant constantly on the aggressive against Lee, McClellan set about the task of writing his letter of acceptance. He could not well place himself upon the platform of the party that nominated him. He made a cautious and guarded dissent from portions of that platform and in opposition to the most important part of it, declared himself in favor of preserving the Union by a vigorous prosecution of the war, if all the "resources of statesmanship," which should be first employed, should prove inadequate. This declaration angered the men who had given tone to the Chicago Convention, and who expected to control

the President if elected. Mr. Vallandigham fairly represented this element when he said: "The Chicago Convention enunciated its platform and principles by authority, and it is binding on every Democrat, and by it the Democratic Administration must and should be governed. It was the only authorized exposition of the Democratic creed, and all others should be repudiated."

Neither did the declaration attract those conservative Republicans whom it was hoped to draw to the support of the ticket, for they recognized the fact that, with his flexible character, McClellan, if

elected, would certain

ly be dominated by the stronger men who controlled the Convention. McClellan was practically held to the platform throughout the campaign.

son as anyone to assent to that clause in the platform which denounced what were called "arbitrary arrests." He was a member of the Thirtyseventh Congress from Ohio. When secession came he opposed coercion, and was ceaseless in his endeavors "to restore the Union through peace." He was violent in his language, in Congress and out of it. For "publicly expressed sympathy for those in arms against the government of the United States, and declared disloyal sentiments and opinions with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the Government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion," uttered in a speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio. Vallandigham was arrested by order of General Burnside, in May, 1863, tried by a military commission, and sentenced to confinement in Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. President Lincoln

CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM.